Current
by Maiden of the Moon
Summary: There is a hand on his chest. -Ten/Rose/Ten 2.0-


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Doctor Who.

**Author's Note: **I finished season four the other night, which means I was finally granted permission by my keeper, Hannah, to write Rose/Ten fanfiction. Though the finale did quash a few of my ideas, I have a couple of others I look forward to writing, if I can find the time… Some will be cute, some will be sad, but I hope all will be enjoyable. :3

**Warnings: **I've only seen through season four—not even the specials, yet—, so if there are any discrepancies with info obtained in later episodes, please forgive me. XD; Since this is my first time writing for the series, there is the distinct possibility of OOCness. Crap editing, because I'm me. Ten/Rose/Ten 2.0. Lemony. Also angst. Sorry? 8D;

**Dedication: **This one here is for mah gurl Alex, who was kind enough to beta both of my new DW fics. I was gonna gift you the fluff one, sweets, but your commentary seemed to indicate that you enjoyed this one more. SO HERE. HAVE SOME FEELS. :D

**XXX**

**Current**

**XXX**

_There is a hand on his chest._

He shifts, half-asleep and unwillingly conscious, as the metal grating of the Tardis floor groans in tinny protest. The ship's usual congested wheeze of life has fallen temporarily silent; she is grounded and resting, much like her owner. There is no white noise to muffle the rustle of rumpled clothing—the sounds of restless shifting, of soft moaning. His matted suit and pale skin glow in the ethereal blue light of the console room, glinting off beads of dewing sweat.

_A hand. Delicate, frail, on his chest. Human. Human and small; female, likely. Young, if the satin feel of her fingertips is anything to judge by. But though she is not yet wrinkled or withered, she is still afflicted by a tremulous trembling… Medical issues? Low blood pressure. No… He can feel the strong pulse of her heart rattle through her veins—smell it, hear it, practically _taste _it. Nerves, then? Anxiety. Ah, wait—endorphins. Arousal. Its odor is a sharp perfume, pungent as a summer rose. (It makes sense, he supposes, as a call for pollination is a call for pollination.) He can just make out the chemicals singing in the hinge of her wrist, where the skin is weak and the blood is fast. And she, though her ears are undoubtedly weaker, can almost certainly hear his song, as well: her palm flush to his flesh, she seeks out the pounding rhythm of it, as if to make sure he is really there. Still alive. Unbroken. _

But no. His heart—his_ hearts_, anyway— have shattered. They continue to pump life through his ancient, ageless body, but they do little else. He wonders, sometimes, if she knows. Somehow. If she can feel his hearts beat through Him, just like he can feel her touch through Him. He is a door, one might say, and—now that he has been opened—can be stepped through from either direction. Or… no, perhaps that metaphor is inappropriate. He is a strange conduit, then; they two are broken wiring, crossed and sparking at a single point… but the electricity flows onward, farther, and father, signals and voltage weakening as they drift apart, down separate timelines and adjust to opposite lives. As the true identicalness of their nature fades, and they become little more than uncannily similar. But for now…

_The hand is moving: trailing idly, tracing out the contours of his body. She finds smatterings of freckles, and the shell of his ear grows warm… He remembers the first time she'd discovered those oh-so-human imperfections, and the way her delighted laughter had echoed in his head. He could nearly see her smile, then: eyes crinkling as she nibbled on the lopsided lift of her lips. And despite the lust, despite the longing, despite the hunger and the desperateness of their reunion, she'd pushed him back and connected every little mole with an invisible line, like she was tracing constellations on a map of the sky. So reverentially. So innocently. With the same awe and affection she'd expressed during their travels, whenever she'd been particularly taken with a wonder of the universe. And even now… Sparks of heat and light shoot behind his eyes and cascade down his back, like falling stars and meteors. _

His empty hands clench around a forgotten coat, folded and tucked beneath his head; a makeshift pillow, its purple fabric tinted indigo in the otherworldly gleam of the turbine. His 'life-jacket.' Or so he had sardonically (and privately) taken to calling it. Back when she'd first left. It'd been, after all, proof that she was still alive, out there, somewhere; moreover, it was something for him to cling to when he missed her more than he could bear. It used to provide such comfort… but its scent is gone, and its color fading. Now, it almost feels like a mockery.

_A deliciously moist pressure wanders up and down the camber of his throat, stimulating overly sensitive synapses. He shudders beneath the gentle ministrations—the press of her lips, the sweep of her tongue, and the cascade of saccharine scented hair that tickles his chin. The whole of him undulates, rumbling with a groan—but she has never particularly liked sharing him, not any part of him, and is quick to swallow the keen with her mouth. _

There had never been a Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis before. (And there never will be again, so long as he can help it.) But the singularity of what had happened— that anomaly of that occurrence— had left him inadequately prepared for what had come next… Had given him no warning, no way to predict this. This… this creature who is him, but not him. A clone that isn't a clone; a monozygotic that he'd helped birth, rather than been born with. An identical twin who is, for now, _genuinely_ identical. They are the sort of "siblings" that the humans have been bizarrely fascinated by since the 5th century… perhaps even before that. Hippocrates, Posidonius… those delusional, modern-day scientists who swear that twins share some sort of telepathy, and the power to sense the other's physical aches and pains over great distances.

_He can feel her beneath his fingertips. The tightly woven canvas of her jeans—fibrous strands of worn cloth patches catching on the roughening pads of his _(but _not _his) _hands. His fingers hook through the belt bands, giving a playful tug—and they collide, all parts of them: her thighs around his waist, and his hands in her hair, and her mouth upon his, and his legs between hers. And springs he cannot see are squeaking as they roll, like the whining grate of the Tardis beneath his weight… _

…well, maybe only _partly_ delusional. For in fairness, it is difficult to tell who is right, now—Hippocrates, Posidonius. The crazies. Maybe they all are. Or maybe they're all wrong. Because in truth, it isn't some genetically similar 'other' that she is caressing— it's him. A part of him. Literally. Grazing _his _skin, igniting _his_ somatosensory system. The stimulus of her touch, her breath, the reverberation of her husked mewls shoot through _his_ sensory nerves, racing up _his_ spinal cord and into _his_ brain, to be processed in the parietal lobe of _his_ cerebral cortex. So is it any wonder, then, that _he_ can feel it?

_There are blankets beneath his palms. Downy—feather spines bending with inaudible snaps— and fragrant with the chemical scent of artificial wildflowers. Freshly laundered fabric folds in upon itself, burying his fists, trying to shackle his wrists. A mattress: the plush of it has indented beneath him, bridged as he is on his knees, pressing so close to her. Only to her… and she clings to him with the same frantic need— nails grinding white crescent moons into the planes of his back— always half-afraid he might leave her again. But no—he never will. This one never will. He doesn't— _

—want to. He'd never _wanted_ to. But this has never been about what he _wants_. It's about what he's needed. What she's needed. What he could give her, what he couldn't. And he hates himself—both versions of himself—in the quiet recesses of his lonely, transcendent mind. Hates that, for her sake, he hadn't been able to tell her… that even in the end, he couldn't say it. And that the other him— that he had been able to. To tell her, and to have her, and to enjoy the life he'd always dreamed of… And now, is forced to dream even when he is awake.

_He has known people to compare him to fire. But no—no, he's not. Not like she is. Not like Rose. Rose is the flame, blazing brighter than anything: brilliant, blinding. An inferno of passion; she is like a star, like a supernova: so hot it nearly kills him, so beautiful he wants to cry… And so needed. Necessary. Necessary for life, for _his_ life, and even though it hurts sometimes, he can't bring himself to look away. He has done what Icarus couldn't, and has flown to the sun; who needs wings, after all, when there is nowhere else he wishes to fly? _

He gasps. He bucks.

"_Ah_—_!_"

The latticework beneath him clatters too-loudly; the merciless solidity of it (rather than the forgiving malleability of the other's bed) nearly knocks the breath from his lungs. He pants, temple clammy, body straining, as he loops his fingers through the grille to brace himself, to stop himself. The self-imposed bite of his tense grip does little to dampen phantasmagoric pleasure; he twists his head, crying out into the worn jacket beneath his head… discarded and wrinkled, and he tries not to think about it. About how—elsewhere, in another universe—her clothing is discarded and wrinkled, yes, but also scattered about the room of another-him.

"_D-Doctor…!_"

It's electric. Everything about him—her—them—has always been electric. Lightening. Transitory, but powerful enough to illuminate the darkness. Magnificent. Cords and destines and limbs and realities tangling. That spark of attraction: it had stung, then grown, then burned, then... His head is full of static. He is leaking energy, amongst other things. Wires that had overlapped so long ago, currents traveling in different directions—weaker and weaker, fraying, but still…

"_Rose…_"

He doesn't know if he will be grateful or inconsolable when their connection inevitably fizzles out.

**XXX**


End file.
